


You Are Here

by Triskaidekalogue



Category: HERO (Webcomic)
Genre: Ficbit, GQFF, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-06
Updated: 2013-05-06
Packaged: 2017-12-10 14:41:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Triskaidekalogue/pseuds/Triskaidekalogue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lost, liminal. (Even a wandering star illuminates.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are Here

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [ldkirby's prompt](http://gqff.livejournal.com/1041.html?thread=166929) during GQFF 2013.

> 'That's my boy,' Ganymar says.
> 
> I don't understand -- what is his boy? I want to ask him what he means...

["islands in the sky", pg. 235](http://invisiblecities.comicgenesis.com/235.html)

  
"Do you understand, now?" Juno says to me when she comes for us.

  
 _All golems may hear other golems._

The rules of logic say that this does not prevent humans or demons, or whatever I am, from also hearing them. Sometimes, though, I wish it did. 

  
_Golems can't wish. Golems who used to be people can only remember what they used to wish._

I have always been able to wish. Even if I didn't know what it was I wished for; even if I didn't know, at first, that I wished for anything at all. But when I close my eyes, Eira's memories chase like clouds across my mind's sky, and I remember what he used to wish. For interesting stories; for new cats to come play; for Valentine to become a person and stay with him and Juno and Ganymar always. They are small, soft wishes, boyish and sure of their simplicity... but they are not mine. I am too complicated now, I think. And I am not a boy.

So Ganymar could not have been talking about me. Perhaps he was talking about Eira? I would have asked him, but that was when I found Eira's city, and the memory that Ganymar must forget.

  
 _Golems don't cry._

Ganymar looks from Juno to me to Juno again. However, he does not ask what Juno means. And she does not explain.

  
 _Golems can't lie._

Yes, I answer Juno.

Then, No.

The Duck lifts its wing to let me crouch by Valentine's side; he hasn't woken since it found him.

For a moment, peculiarly clear, I see him shadowed by a different set of wings, under a different sky. The double-vision seizes me with a sudden bright determination. I slip a hand into the pocket of my jacket, which hardly covers Valentine at all, and touch the dragon's egg.

He was going to be a person again, I say. Only he went too far away and I -- Eira -- he wanted to follow him, to find him again. That was a part of Eira. That was his wish.

"Demons don't want to be people again," Juno says, shaking her head. "All golems know that."

  
 _The price of bringing a golem to life is paid by the golem, forever._

But I am not a golem anymore.

I take the dragon's egg and carefully wrap Valentine's fingers around its luminous whorls. It shivers in his hand, as if it dreams of hatching. His eyelids flicker.

"Eira?" he croaks.

I still don't have my own name, I tell him, but I am also still not him.

At the sound of my voice Valentine's eyes fly all the way open.

"Lost!"

I look up to smile at Juno and Ganymar, and I say: for now.


End file.
